


Same Time, Next Year

by annabeth_at_the_helm



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Hawkeye Pierce, Cheating, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 07:27:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20042161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_at_the_helm/pseuds/annabeth_at_the_helm
Summary: After Korea, Hawkeye and Trapper meet up once a year, every year, for a tryst. This is the story of some of those dates.





	Same Time, Next Year

"This is gonna be an R&R to remember," Trapper says, holding up his martini glass. They passed soused and moved on to blitzed awhile back, and Hawkeye is trying to remember how to make his mouth work as he stares into hazel eyes.

"Yesh," he mumbles, and Trapper bonks Hawk's shoulder before laughing and teetering on his feet.

"Hey, Hawk?" he asks, grabbing Hawkeye's arm and suddenly they're both falling sideways onto a fluffy mattress. "What're you starin' in my eyes like that for?"

"It's my eagle—my hawk-like vision. I can' help it." Hawkeye rolls on the bed, and his limbs are loose and sloppy and when his hand makes contact with Trapper's groin, they both freeze—Hawkeye feels, just for a razor of a second, sober. Then the moment's gone and he can't quite remember why he should be disturbed by the feel of Trapper's cock slowly going hard beneath his hand.

"Hawkeye," Trap says, and he blinks his eyes up at Trapper, feeling woozy from blood in his alcohol system and drink making his fingers feel almost nerveless—but not enough to disguise the tingle he's getting from having his palm suddenly cupped over Trapper's family jewels.

And boy, but as he mines those hazel eyes for inflection, he becomes aware that Trapper's dick is still swelling, that Trap is wearing an expression crossed between stupefied and annihilated, and he hasn't punched Hawk yet.

"Oh," Hawk says. "Sorry, I was questing for treasure and I, uh, I found it."

"That's—you got your hand on my…" Trap swallows, and Hawk wants to reach up and feel his Adam's apple move beneath his fingers. "Hawkeye, get off."

Hawkeye's body feels like it sloshes to the side in waves, and his hand is at once on his own belly and off Trapper's cock. He's hung—like, unfuckingbelievably.

"You gotta admit," Hawkeye says as the ceiling becomes a swirl of bright colors, "I really know how to pick them."

"I ain't a nurse," Trap says. Hawkeye's eyes close.

"That's painfully obvious," Hawk mumbles, "because if you were I'd really have to question whether the right person in this outfit is wearing dresses." He yawns; it feels like the whole world is swallowed down into his mouth. "Pretty sure none of the nurses are hiding an elephant trunk in their army issue underwear, anyway."

"Jus' forget it, Hawk," Trapper says. "Go to sleep. My, uh, well my dick is none of your concern, ya know?"

As Hawkeye rides away on a wave of booze, he realizes that he may _not_ remember this at all.

And wouldn't that be a crying shame, to forget the shape of what must be one beautiful dick? He wants to tell Trap something, something pithy or profound or barring that, at least witty, but the alcohol has robbed him of his wit.

It's not much for a first encounter, but later, when the letter comes, it sparks the memory in Hawk's mind.

_Same time, next year?_

++

Hawkeye dreams. For a long time after Trapper's gone, Hawkeye will drift away on clouds of groggy sleep and find himself back in that Seoul hotel room, and instead of drunk, he's always sober as a chaplain. He dreams, and in those dreams, Trapper's wearing only his underwear—olive drab and pilled, worn cotton—and Hawkeye is rubbing, slowly, patiently, achingly over the hard-on pressing heavy into his palm.

Trapper's cock is maybe even bigger than he remembers, or maybe he's just still fixated on the size, and Trapper's eyes are dark. Trapper is caressing his face, and Hawkeye is sliding to his knees… When the underwear come down, balls cupped by both the elastic and Hawkeye's fingers, Hawkeye isn't shocked by the thick meaty length of his best friend. His mouth is already partway open, watering for a taste. 

But those are just dreams, mythical moonbeams spun into sugar for the mind, candy that only his soul can taste. When he wakes up, it's always too soon, and he's still in Korea. His hard-ons wane from exhaustion and overwork, and BJ knows better than to ask why he wakes himself up whimpering in his sleep. 

BJ is a great friend, but he's not Trapper, and that's an issue Hawkeye doesn't know how to solve, a conundrum that keeps popping up whenever Hawkeye dreams, and forgets—for half a second—that Trapper's gone.

Gone, and never coming back. Gone, and didn't even say goodbye. 

So when Hawkeye wakes up, it's _always_ a rude awakening, even when he wakes up naturally—but no matter how many nurses he fucks by night, he's always hard by the time he opens his eyes in the morning.

BJ is also tactful enough not to mention it, and Charles is too self-absorbed to notice, thank the benevolent creator—as Father Mulcahy might say. 

And the years drag on, the war is a show that keeps playing over and over, and Hawkeye misses Trapper: just like the wounded keep coming; just like he keeps breathing; just like his heart keeps beating out Trapper's name with every electrical pulse.

Through it all, Hawkeye resents as much as he loves, even though Trapper's discharge wasn't his fault. But he longs for Crabapple Cove—and sometimes, Hawkeye thinks he longs for Trapper just as much.

++

_Same time, next year?_

It's the first letter Hawkeye's gotten from Trapper since he was discharged, and it's cold, cryptic, and yet something about it is reassuring. 

He stashes it in his nudist volleyball magazine to keep Frank's prying eyes and filthy fingers off it, then falls asleep that night remembering Seoul.

In his dreams, this time, instead of delirious fantasies, he is transported back to that Seoul hotel room and his fingers tingling from contact with Trapper's impressive dick.

He still doesn't remember much of what actually happened, but he knows they were drunk, and now, with the coming of the letter and the remembrance of Trapper's goodbye kiss, he begins to wonder if maybe Trapper had a tendresse for him in return. It wouldn't make any logical sense, of course. Trapper had been long ago married and had two daughters by the time they met in Korea.

And by the time they'd been alone in that hotel room in Seoul, Trapper might have had suspicions about Hawkeye—they did used to be best friends—but there was no reason for Hawkeye to have any return suspicions about Trapper; he'd never acted like a fool around Hawkeye. Never acted the least bit concerned about Hawkeye's little jokes, either.

Hawkeye realizes he's dreaming when Trapper's face gets closer and closer, close enough to kiss, and instead of kissing him, suddenly there's a big red clown nose and a honking noise in the background. Hawkeye startles backwards, lands on his ass, and discovers flying pigs cavorting above his head; this is about the time that he wakes up to BJ yelling something in Charles's general vicinity.

Then all three of them hear the choppers, and as they rush off to OR, Hawkeye remembers the curt, scrawled missive.

What does Trapper mean? And he sent that nearly a year after he left—no, wait, nearly a year to that fateful trip to Seoul. He sent it care of the Army, but what if he expects Hawkeye to come home, to meet him somewhere… and Hawkeye can't, because the war is an endless parade of bodies and there's no discharge for him in sight?

++

It's when BJ spends a week framing Hawkeye for vicious pranks that his patience begins to wear thin. He misses Trapper like the keen ache of a phantom limb, his partner in crime—"Whoever the them, we were always the us!"—and he puts a game face on and decides not to let BJ know how much it bothers him, but he can't help the little flare of resentment when BJ comes up smelling like a rose—a feat in a war torn country full of latrines in the summer—and Hawkeye still looks like a horse's ass, even after the camp knows he didn't arrange those pranks.

And the following night, when BJ is asleep and Hawkeye can't because of the shelling, he realizes it's the anniversary of his night in Seoul with Trapper, and instead of home in his own bed—or maybe in a hotel bed next to a hotel bed with Trapper in it—he's still stuck in Korea; he's astonished—and embarrassed, a bit, though BJ can't see—to feel the prick of tears behind his eyelids.

Creeping out of his cot, despite the fact that they've all long since gotten used to the creaks and croaks and groans that come from the terrible army bunks, he finds that particular nudist magazine and flips it open to the page where the note had been entombed. The letter is, thank the heavens, still there, and it still says its cryptic little message, but Hawkeye, overwhelmed by emotion, brings it up to his face.

It smells a bit like floral perfume, something that Hawkeye attributes to Trapper living with his wife again, but there is just the faintest undercurrent of something else.

Trapper's aftershave, and his earthy, particular smell. Hawkeye never thought to smell the letter before… would that scent have been stronger when he first got it? In any event, that question is fairly academic, because whether Hawkeye smelled Trapper on it in the past or just now, the result is the same: he pops a hard on, and realizes that despite his anger, resentment, and feelings of abandonment, there's something else still there.

Something that, in the wake of a long separation, looks less like an inconvenient crush and more like… love.

So when, the next night, he receives the second letter, the first thing he does is smell it: and it's so strongly redolent of Trapper that Hawkeye's heart squeezes tight. Then he takes the time to read it, and it says,

_Same time, next year?_ but this time there's a postscript in small print: _Seoul, June 25, 1953_.

Hawkeye can't believe his eyes: after no goodbye and almost no contact, it sounds like Trapper's coming back to Seoul to meet him; he can only assume that Trapper means the same hotel. What he doesn't know, not yet, is that the Korean War is finally approaching a cessation of hostilities, and Trapper won't keep his date.

But Hawkeye gets something better.

++

Hawkeye makes a pit stop in Boston on the way home from the war, looking for a work, and finds it so readily that he never completely moves back home. He makes the drive to Crabapple Cove often, to see his father and take some time to rest and heal, but before he knows it a year flies by, and it's July 26, 1954. He's just returning from Maine when he finds the unsigned, creamy off-white note shoved under his door. He doesn't know how Trapper found him—he'd be concerned, if he didn't get such a naughty thrill from knowing Trap cared enough to track him down—but he rips open the envelope while in the bath, a martini on the ledge next to the tub, and swallows in surprise.

_Tomorrow._

That's all it says. Hawkeye realizes with a shock that tomorrow is July 27, the day the armistice was signed. The day he got his life back. Unable to believe that Trapper would leave no other clue as to what the note's about, he flips it over and there's an address for a hotel on the back, complete with a reservation in the name of T. McIntyre. Hawkeye's heart thumps almost painfully and he nearly drops the note into the water.

After two whole years—slightly more, but who's counting—Hawkeye is going to see Trapper again. Besides Tommy, Trapper is his first adult best friend, and though for a time Hawkeye thought that BJ could fill up that empty space, he knows now that his heart could never let go. _Has_ never let go, and the prospect of seeing Trapper makes him feel light as air, like he could put his head under the water and still be able to breathe.

For the briefest second he wonders what Sidney would say, but then he asks himself why he would wonder such a thing, and puts it out of his mind. He carefully slots the note back into its envelope, climbs out of the tub, and dries himself off. He polishes off his martini and walks into his bedroom, putting the note with Trapper's other two missives, hiding them in the same magazine as he did in Korea, though now he does it for nostalgia's sake rather than secrecy; he lives alone, after all.

Sleep doesn't want to come that night, but eventually, Hawkeye drifts off on a cocktail of several martinis and some aspirin, and he doesn't dream—not even of Trapper.

It might be the first time since Trapper left him—_went home, he was discharged, he didn't deliberately_ leave—that Hawkeye doesn't dream.

++

**July 27, 1954**

Hawkeye's not entirely sure how to approach Trapper's hotel room without looking suspicious, but Trapper gave him the directions, so he'd best just use them—besides, Trapper ought to be there to open the door, right?

He's so nervous his heart is slamming against his ribs and his palms are sweaty. As a doctor, he can recognize all the signs—but as a man potentially in love with another man, he can't soothe himself and make the anxiety go away. What will it be like to see Trapper again? Will they simply pick up where they left off, or will it be awkward? What if Hawkeye's anger—that he's not sure if it ever abated—makes things difficult between them?

After all, Trapper took a flight home without ever saying goodbye, and his letters later on never explained himself.

But when Hawkeye reaches room 403 and knocks, the last thing he expects is for the door to open just wide enough to fit his bony frame inside, and for Trapper to pull him through the door, shut it gently—Hawkeye rather thinks Trapper would have slammed it, if he wasn't trying to keep a low profile—and push Hawkeye back against it.

Hawkeye's mind empties of everything but the scent and sight of Trapper filling his senses to overflowing, and he suddenly isn't questioning anymore what it will be like to see Trapper again, because Trapper takes full advantage of his nickname and "traps" Hawkeye against the door. And then their lips are touching, just a brush for a second before Trapper drops all of his conviction on Hawkeye and melds their mouths into what feels like a seamless connection, all hot breath and sweat under his armpits and Trapper's tongue in his mouth.

Hawkeye is startled at first, too startled to react, but just as Trapper starts to pull back—he can sense that it's coming, even before Trapper's lips stop clinging quite so vociferously to his—he kisses back. He's wrapped his arms around Trapper's solid, lean torso and and can feel the way his breath relaxes and his body loses some of the straight arm tension. He flicks his tongue against Trapper's and they both gasp, losing the thread of the kiss and pulling apart, a strand of saliva still connecting them even as Hawkeye stares into hazel eyes gone very green. The pupils are dark black holes, swallowing all of Hawkeye's fears and reservations, and Trapper's breath against his lips is warm, soft; but it breaks their connection completely.

And then Trapper's gone. Not all the way across the room or anything especially dramatic like that, but he's dropped his arms from beside Hawkeye's head and he's taken at least one step back. He looks abashed, his head ducking, one hand mussing up the back of his blond curls.

"I had to try it, at least once," he says, but his eyes are hidden by his downward look and Hawkeye can't imagine what he's thinking. Is he horrified by himself? By Hawkeye? By them both, even, that they could both participate in such a thing?

Or maybe he's going to be angry with Hawkeye now, for not being the straight man he always thought he was. Because of course, it has to be Hawkeye's fault. He must not have hidden things well enough; it's probably the reason he got no formal goodbye when Trapper left Korea. Though now he wonders about that kiss Radar bestowed on him in lieu of Trapper doing it himself. Was there some sort of special extra meaning to that, and Hawkeye never realized?

"G'on, Hawk, say somethin'," Trapper says, and now he glances up under his lashes. His eyes are dark, filled with mysteries, and Hawkeye can't read a single emotion in their depths.

"I—you surprised me," Hawkeye says, in what he assumes is pretty evident surprise. Way to go, Pierce, you stated the absolute fucking obvious.

"If your old football injury ain't botherin' ya too much you can punch me," Trapper says. "Though please don't call my wife or the cops."

The "w" word throws a bucket of cold water over Hawkeye's ardor, and he realizes that Trapper's shocked all of the smartass and wit right out of him.

"I… won't," he says. "What was that for? Normally I'd ask you to buy me a drink first, but I think that's legally frowned upon in the manner in which my comment would be intended."

"I've been thinkin' about it for so long, Hawk. So long, you got no idea. Ever since I left Korea, I kept seein' your face, and wonderin'. Whether you'd kiss me back. What your lips'd feel like—would it be different than a woman's? What you'd taste like."

"And? Was it everything you'd been dreaming of? My lips are dangerous weapons, you know." Hawkeye is being mouthy, like usual, but he thinks Trapper has to know how desperate the words are to cover Hawkeye's inconvenient emotions.

"I don' know," Trapper says. "I'm not sure what I was expectin'. Not… for it to be so bristly," he adds, and Hawkeye touches his chin. He's relatively clean-shaven, but like he always did in Korea, he has stubble. He wasn't surprised or blindsided by the feel of Trapper's stubble, but then, he's kissed men before.

"I carefully cultivated these whiskers," Hawkeye says. "They make me look so damn debonair, don't you think?"

"Do ya ever stop with the funny mouth, Hawk?" Trapper asks, palms out, face flushing red as if he's becoming overwhelmed by embarrassment. But Hawkeye just stares at him for a moment.

"You lived with me in squalor for a _year_, Trap. You don't _know_? Or do you just not remember? I would have expected a doctor to recognize the early signs of dementia—"

"Shut up, Hawk! You've never played with _me_ like this, dontcha think? Is it because… because I ki—did what I did? I can' take it back. And I, uh, I wouldn'."

Now Trapper's fair skin is a blotchy red, from his cheeks down to the hint of his chest in the open collar of his shirt.

"Even though it was _bristly_?" Hawkeye asks, not sure why he's belaboring the point, or why he seems so bound and determined to make Trapper reconsider. Maybe it's because he doesn't think his heart can take it if Trapper offers him this and then decides to take it back.

"I said it was unexpected. I ain't said it was bad," Trapper says. "Can we try it again?"

Hawkeye isn't used to that uncertain note beneath Trapper's usual swagger. With a sudden jolt, he notices he's still pressed with his back against the door; that he hasn't even walked into the room fully. It's a little run down, the curtains frayed at the ends, the bedspread mottled with age, the walls dingy from smoke and use. It's seen its better days, but of course they had to go someplace where they might be able to go unnoticed.

Still, against the dark green painted walls, Trapper stands out with his fair skin and his blond curls and Hawkeye can feel his heart contract, and he knows it's already much too late for him. He can't protect his heart, not like he wants to. If he pushes back, it might make Trapper leave, but it won't keep Hawkeye from feeling the pain. There's no anesthesia in the world that can do that.

So he nods, shakily, and comes forward, allowing himself to enter the space fully and step towards Trapper, whose shoulders visibly relax as he reaches for Hawkeye. He cradles Hawkeye's rounded shoulders under his hands and holds their bodies still separate as he leans in, and this kiss is more tentative, as if Trapper used up all his innovation and courage. But Hawkeye can't leave it alone; he fists the collar of Trapper's shirt in his hand and pulls him closer, then locks his other arm around Trapper's waist and tugs them together until they're touching all the way down their bodies—and Hawkeye can feel that impressive hard on that he's been dreaming about ever since that R&R in Seoul.

And then they're backing towards the bed, Hawkeye leading by example, guiding Trapper towards what could be the sweetest moment—or the worst idea of their lives.

++

The first thing Hawkeye is aware of the next morning is the slightly cool bare foot pressed against the back of his thigh, followed by the bed shifting just fractionally as Trapper moves. Then the sheet lifts a little, cool air swathing his bare ass, and the sore feeling combined with the bare skin of Trapper's hip reminds him of what they did the night before.

He cracks an eye open when the mattress inhales as Trapper slips out of the bed, peeking over his shoulder, to where Trapper is trying—sloppily—to get his underwear on, one leg caught in the leg hole while he hops around on one foot.

"Going somewhere?" Hawkeye asks as Trapper struggles to put his jacket on without remembering to put his shirt on first. "I'd say it's bad form to sneak out on the morning after, but it might be worse when you consider the fact that this hotel room is in your name. A little suspicious, don't you think?"

Trapper drops his shoe, which lands with a sleep-disturbing thump.

"Hawk, listen, I—"

Hawkeye rolls over completely, throwing the covers off, even though he knows it will make his dick shrivel a little in the morning air, which has cooled considerably in the room. He raises an eyebrow, going for mocking, and says,

"If you were having regrets, you could have just said something. How long have we known each other? Well, no, to be more precise, how long does it _feel_ like we've known each other? We're friends. I'm a big boy—" here he pauses and his eyes flick downward "—well, emotionally, I'm pretty secure, so you could have just _said something_."

"Maybe I was going to get us breakfast?" Trapper says, giving Hawkeye his best boyish smile, the one where one corner of his mouth crooks up a little more than the other side. Hawkeye would melt, but he's much too strong for that.

"Just do us a favor, Trap, and don't lie to me. Okay? So you didn't like it. Just man up and admit you didn't like it."

Something flashes across Trapper's face, too quick for him to reliably read, as Trapper pulls his pants on. He's still getting dressed, but more slowly, and he didn't bolt when Hawkeye announced he was awake and watching Trapper's covert fumblings with his clothes. Trapper's shoulders droop, and his eyes cast down to the floor. Yeah, this is bad. Trapper must be so totally disgusted by what they did that he can't even look at Hawkeye any longer than he has to.

"I ain't lyin' about everything," Trapper says. "I wouldn' do that to you. My wife…" but he trails off, looking discomfited and shifting from foot to foot.

"Does she know where you are?" Hawkeye is almost alarmed, but he tries not to show it on his face. Surely Trapper wouldn't have told her about a homosexual hookup?

"I just told her I was gonna see wartime buddies. For a coupla days."

"Then she's not wondering where you are right now?" Hawkeye asks, feeling immeasurably relieved. He hooks the blanket with his foot and pulls it back up till he can adjust it with his hands.

"Nah. And she woulda wondered why I came home early. But, Hawk, I don' think I can be here right now. Or…"

"You want me to leave," Hawkeye guesses, watching Trapper nod a tiny bit. "Sure. I get it. It isn't for everyone, and—wait. What was wrong with it?"

"Ain't nothin' wrong," Trapper protests, but he still can't look at Hawkeye.

"Total honesty, remember? Like, for instance, I would like to point out that my ass is on revolt because we did it three times. I think maybe twice would have been better. That, and the size of your dick is truly awe-inspiring, but it's also what you might call a sore spot at the moment. That, and your come is crusted on me because you didn't bring a condom. And—"

"I get it, please! Hawk, shut up!" Trapper is holding both hands up, but he's looking at Hawkeye again, pleadingly. "What was wrong with three times?"

"Well, you woke me up, for one, and… next time you can offer up your ass to be sacrificed and you'll understand."

Trapper looks so horrified that it's all Hawkeye can do not to laugh. "I'm kidding, Trap. Baby steps."

He says,

"Throw me my clothes, and I'll get out of your hair. And you can do… whatever… for a day and half by yourself."

"Don't be angry," Trapper says as he brings the clothes to the bed. He has to stop and pick up various articles where they were dropped or thrown.

Hawkeye sighs. He always knew straight men were a bad deal, but then Trapper waltzed into his life with his blond curls and his cute overbite and defined biceps and Hawkeye lost his head. Or his heart. Maybe both; anyway, the point is he should have known better, but now it's too late.

"I'm not angry," he says wearily. Trapper pauses with the clothes, then bites his lower lip. He's looking decidedly sultry, though he doesn't try to kiss Hawkeye or anything. "I just want us to be honest with each other."

"Honestly, Hawk, I'm just feelin' guilt. Could you imagine what my wife would say?"

Hawkeye takes the clothes from him and dresses quickly. "No. I can't. Because she has to know you cheated all throughout your tour of duty. And, Trap, you told me that yourself. What's so different? Because even if she knew you cheated again, you wouldn't be able to tell her with who—or, more importantly, what."

"You make yourself sound like a cheeseburger for breakfast when all I'm s'posed to have is grapefruit," Trapper says, but he's smiling.

"I'm going to go now, all right? Lock up after me," Hawkeye says, joking. As if Trapper couldn't protect himself. He waits a moment, hoping Trapper will say _something_, anything really, but his best friend just stares at his feet. "See ya 'round," Hawkeye says, and Trapper gives a quick, unconvincing nod.

So it's going to be like that, then. Trapper's guilt—and probably also his heterosexuality—is going to keep him from making any kind of commitments. He's just going to let Hawkeye walk out the door…

...and as Hawkeye shuts it behind himself, he sighs, body sagging with the weight that, no matter how wonderful it was to _know_ Trapper, he's never going to again.

He'll probably never even speak to Hawkeye again.

++

The way Trapper reacted, Hawkeye is pretty sure he scared him off for good. He doesn't know when it happened, whether it was the kissing or the sex or the joke about Trapper being the catcher. If he had to say anything, he'd say Trapper might have been athletic but he doesn't know if he ever played baseball.

His brain is twirling, cracking nonsensical jokes to try to keep from focusing on what happened that morning as he rides the T back to his apartment. Because seriously, if he'd said that to Trapper, asked him if he'd ever played baseball, Trapper would have given him a look, right? One that said he didn't get Hawkeye's point?

Or maybe they're still in sync enough that Trapper would have picked up on the joke—but Hawkeye never should have made the wisecrack about Trapper bottoming. Because even if the fact that he had sex with another man didn't frighten him away, the thought that he might have to actually _take it_ would probably drive Trapper out of the picture for good.

Hawkeye alights at his stop, and walks, a bit gingerly, down the busy Boston streets towards his apartment. He's lost in thought, and his ass stings a little from the exuberant, overzealous sex he had all night, but that's not really the sore spot he can't stop worrying at.

No, it's the fact that he already said goodbye to Trapper once, even if from a distance, and made his peace with that loss. He _grieved_ Trapper, as if he were dead and not simply, tragically, gone. The tragedy of course being to Hawkeye's heart; unlike Henry, Hawkeye had known that Trapper made it home safe.

As he unlocks his apartment door, he hears the phone ringing inside. He shoves his keys back into his pocket, in a hurry, and dashes towards the kitchen extension, but by the time he gets there and picks up, there's nothing but a moment of silence and then dial tone. He replaces the receiver and stares at it, torn between unwise hope and a feeling of despair. Trapper wouldn't call him. They just saw each other that morning and even though the night was right out of Hawkeye's dreams, the morning left a lot to be desired.

Probably a sales call, anyway; Hawkeye doesn't like to admit it to himself, but those are really the only calls he gets. His dad doesn't really use the phone much, and besides, he often visits him in Crabapple Cove, so Daniel doesn't really feel the need to call him. Neither of them are much for words with each other, it's more likely that they'll watch a football game on television or maybe Hawkeye will do Daniel's rounds with him at the clinic.

Hawkeye grabs some ice cream from the freezer—he's looking for break-up food and he can't even call this a break up—and settles into his easy chair. Putting the spoon mechanically in his mouth, Hawkeye has no choice.

He has to admit it: he's lonely. And those few hours with Trapper were like a balm to his soul, a time with another person. Someone he could sharpen his wit on besides himself. Hawkeye stares unseeing into the ice cream carton and thinks that he doesn't really want food, he just wants to go to sleep.

So even though it's only mid-afternoon, that's what he does.

++

Hawkeye doesn't know how Trapper manages it, but a letter arrives the following year, on July 26th, and it says, _Tomorrow_ on it, with a handwritten scrawl of where to be. Hawkeye had spent the last year trying to keep busy, to not think about Trapper or what their relationship might be to each other now.

But he's lost count of the dozens of times he picked up the phone book, desperate to look Trapper up, to call him and—to say what? After all, what could Trapper say? And how could Hawkeye do that to him—call him at home, when he might be with his wife?

Thoughts of Trapper's wife are almost crippling in the intensity of the guilt they cause. Hawkeye doesn't even know why, really; he's never considered Trapper's cheating any of his business before, and though now he supposes it technically _is_ his business, he doesn't want to feel sorry for her. But he remembers Erica, and how he'd been so upset when he thought she was married, and how back during the war he'd had standards. He wouldn't have slept with a married person.

Except for Carlye, anyway. She was the anomaly the proved the rule; she'd been his girlfriend, then his lover, and then after they broke up, he'd tried to forget her. When she'd blown back through the 4077th, it was hard to remember that she was married, that she should have been off-limits to him—he couldn't conceive of her belonging to someone else; she'd always been _his_. But despite that little misstep, he's never been tempted by the married men and women in his life before: except Trapper. Trapper has been married longer than Hawkeye's known him; Hawkeye can't pretend like Trapper was _his_ first.

Trapper changed all his views on sleeping with married people with nothing more than one letter. When Trapper sent it last year it upturned Hawkeye's life, his morals—well, what morals he had, anyway. Or at least the ones not already eroded by Carlye. But the chance to be with Trapper in the way he'd always dreamed had been irresistible, and he hadn't given Louise a second thought once he'd had Trapper in bed with him in that hotel.

So no, he couldn't have called Trapper. He knows that. But he wanted to so badly, to hear that sweet voice with the Boston drawl, to ask him if they were still friends. For a year, a whole year, he twiddled his thumbs, and worried about whether he'd ruined everything between them by succumbing to his base lust. But this letter… it may not mean more sex. It probably doesn't. But it _does_ mean that Trapper wants to see him again.

And unless Trapper is arranging for them to meet up solely to break Hawkeye's heart in person, it might even mean they're still friends. And what guy chooses to do in person what he could do by letter? A Dear John, as it were; no, and Trapper's not that type of person anyway.

Hawkeye doesn't know what to expect from tomorrow, but he hopes it won't be a litany of regrets and a grocery list of reasons to feel guilty from Trapper. He hopes Trapper won't mention his wife; that he won't suddenly decide to update Hawkeye on how his kids are doing, whether Kathy won the spelling bee or Becky tried out for softball. Not that he really knows anything about Trapper's daughters these days. Or, even, whether Trapper's had any more kids. The thought makes him grimace; he doesn't even want to consider that Trapper might still be sleeping with his wife.

For a split second, he considers not showing up. What if they have nothing to talk about? What if seeing Trapper again is more excruciating than not? What if just a glance at Trapper's face makes Hawkeye want to take him to bed so bad that he has to get out of there?

Can he honestly show up to this assignation—is it still an assignation if they're not planning to have sex?—and not want to tumble Trapper in the bedsheets?

He crumples the letter in his fist. Is it really better not to go?

++

**July 27, 1955**

But in the end, Hawkeye can't do it. He can't just stand Trapper up; can't not go; can't stop himself from wanting to see that loved face. He wants Trapper's friendship more than almost anything, even if it comes at the expense of his broken heart. Because Trapper _should_ be worth a broken heart, if it means getting to be a part of his life.

Which is how he finds himself at the same hotel they were in last year, the door opening to reveal Trapper in a robe and bare feet with hotel flip flops on, his hair a little longer than last year, a little curlier; his eyes are the same, though. He's smiling. He doesn't look angry, and he doesn't look like he's been fretting for a year like Hawkeye has been.

"You made it," Trapper says, opening the door wider to let him in. "Ya want a Coke? Or somethin' stronger?"

Hawkeye realizes that Trapper is holding a martini glass, complete with olive, and grins.

"I see you got started in without me. I should have expected the three-sheets welcome, complete with olive."

"I ain't drunk yet, Hawk," Trapper says, mock reprovingly. "But jus' gimme time." His grin is just as big as the one Hawkeye can feel stretching his own lips.

"God, it's good to see you, you big lug," Hawkeye says. He glances meaningfully at the martini, which Trapper sets down on the bedside table. Before he knows what's happening, Trapper is sweeping him into an effusive hug.

He holds Hawkeye like that long enough that Hawkeye starts to wonder if the world's been put on pause, then lets him go, still smiling. It's a smile Hawkeye never gets tired of, and has never seen enough of. During their time in Korea, of course Trapper smiled, but he also wore a frown a lot more. How could you not, when surrounded by all that death, all that dying, all those wounded you knew you couldn't save?

Hawkeye hadn't even noticed when Trapper shut the door, as he pulls away a bit and says,

"About last year, listen, I know I took things too far and—"

"Whaddya talkin' about?" Trapper asks, retrieving his martini and setting about making Hawkeye one.

"Well, it was pretty clear you didn't want to have anything to do with me afterward. I can only assume it wasn't my sparkling personality that drove you away. You tried to sneak out of your own hotel room!"

"Nah, Hawk, you misunderstood. I wasn't…" Trapper hands him the martini, scrunching up his face thoughtfully. "I did freak out a little, but not for the reasons ya think. I had expected to… feel a certain way after. An' I didn't. Feel that way. Knocked me for a loop, that's all."

"We're talking about our feelings now?" Hawkeye asks, taking his first sip of the martini Trapper mixed for him. "Oh, Trap. This is heaven. So much better than that swill we had in Korea."

"Blasphemy!" Trapper says, laughing. "Also, you started it, Hawkeye. But… could we try not to mention Korea? I still get flashbacks, and my wife likes to pretend they don't happen. She says they scare the kids. The truth is, they scare _her_, an' I just wanna die, those times."

"You happy to be home? To be with your wife?"

Trapper grimaces, swallowing what's left of his drink. "Nah. I mean, it's great to see my girls. I missed them so much, ya know? Of course you do; you remember. But Louise… no. I barely wanna touch her anymore. Fuck, Hawk. The last time we made love, ya know what I was thinkin' about? You. It was two days before this and all I could think about was you."

Hawkeye doesn't know what to say to this. He stares hard at Trapper, as if maybe somehow his best friend is lying, or concealing an uglier truth, and he can just suss it out if he looks at him hard enough. But no, Trapper seems genuinely sincere, his hazel eyes earnest, his lips slightly curved down, expression a bit troubled.

"I thought I disgusted you," Hawkeye says finally. "Because of how you couldn't wait to get away from me."

"No. I wasn' disgusted. I thought I would be. I couldn' wait to get away from ya because I _wasn'_ disgusted. I felt worse about that… that I shoulda fucked another guy and liked it as much as I did."

Now Hawkeye can feel how sly his smile is. "You wanna fuck again?" he asks, performing his best bottoms up on his martini glass and setting it aside. He saunters over to Trapper, who doesn't look the least bit fazed by the homosexual crowding his space.

"I thought you'd never ask," Trapper says, then grabs the back of his neck and pulls him, forcefully, into a bruising kiss.

++

Later, lying in bed together, Hawkeye's afraid to open his eyes, but Trapper's hand keeps languidly brushing his hair off his forehead, his fingers passing through the strands ceaselessly in a way that's so soothing Hawkeye never wants it to end. With his eyes still closed, he says,

"Hey, Trap?"

"You have grey hair now," Trapper says softly, hand still moving. Every sweep back of of his hair causes Trapper's hand to stroke over Hawkeye's forehead, and that simple, gentle touch is enough to make Hawkeye want to cry. He's hardly ever cried since he got back from Korea.

"It's called becoming an old person," Hawkeye quips, but his heart isn't really in it—no, his heart is too busy being swamped by inconvenient feelings for a married man. Hawkeye has to remind himself—a discreet pinch to the inside of his arm—that Trapper has a wife, a life, children. He can never be Hawkeye's. A tear trickles down the side of his cheek, dripping into his ear, hot and then cold.

"Are we that old?" Trapper asks meditatively, pausing in his stroking to lean down and kiss the exposed part of Hawkeye's forehead, then drifting lower till he's possessing Hawkeye's mouth. They've already done it once, fast, really too rough for the size of the weapon Trapper's using on Hawkeye, but he was just as desperate, too caught up in things to tell Trapper to slow down, be more careful.

"Are we doing this again?" Hawkeye breathes into Trapper's mouth, intoxicated by the feeling of being under his weight, of the soft pliancy of his lips on Hawkeye's. He cups the back of Trapper's skull, tangling his fingers in the longer curls, loving the feel of them. He could get lost in the different sensations of Trapper: the softness of his hair; the velvety silk of his lips; the bristle of his five o'clock shadow; the scratch and scrape of the hair on his thighs and legs—so different from women; even the thick, corded steel feeling of his cock as it slips into the breach of Hawkeye's body again.

He isn't surprised that Trapper never answered him; Trapper's too busy kissing him for words, and he was never much for words anyway. Hawkeye arches his hips, eyes fluttering, catching glimpses of those hazel eyes and flushed cheeks. Trapper's face registers the strain of not impaling Hawkeye this time, of going slow and simple and easy, and Hawkeye lets out a long breath as Trapper's cock slides all the way home, till their bodies meet, cradle each other.

It's all a blur after that, one thrust melting into another, until they're melting apart, fraying at the seams, Hawkeye spilling first, come splattering Trapper's perfect belly. Trapper follows him up, and they didn't use a condom this time, so Hawkeye can feel—a sort of anguished pleasure—the feeling of sticky come coating his insides. He knows it will drip out of him for hours after, but somehow, having that little extra bit of Trapper to hold within himself fills him with an inextricable sadness and yet, also, contentment.

Trapper slips free, and Hawkeye can feel his hole struggle to close for a moment on emptiness, and then a droplet of thick, hot come slides down the crack of his ass. Trapper kisses him again, and for long moments, in the post-coital languor, they just enjoy each other in the glow.

Finally, Trapper pulls away. "It's almost checkout time, Hawk," he says, but he hasn't clammed up and gotten all funny like he did last year.

"And your wife is waiting up for you?" Hawkeye guesses, and Trapper shrugs.

"She is or she isn't, that doesn't really matter. She long ago gave up expecting certain things from me." Hawkeye isn't clear what Trapper means by this; his fidelity? His love? And how long ago did she give up on whatever it is?

"Trap—"

"Relax," Trapper says, smiling a soft sunshine smile. "I told you; she thinks I'm cozying up to my wartime buddies. She doesn't know exactly what kind of cozying up, or how _many_ buddies, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

"If you say so." Hawkeye rolls out of his arms, getting to his feet. "I need a shower."

"Wait, Hawk," Trapper says. "Come say goodbye properly?"

"You sound like someone speaking to a child," Hawkeye says crossly. He doesn't know why he has to pick at this scab. Why he can't let things end with the pleasant glow of recent orgasm.

"Hawkeye. Before you take a shower. Same time, next year." He grins. "So look forward to it."

Hawkeye knows without asking that, when he leaves the bathroom, Trapper will be gone. Somehow it isn't the feeling of pain he's expecting; he goes over and, as he grabs a robe, kisses Trapper full on the mouth, heavy and deep, before letting him go.

Just saying goodbye properly.

++

**July 27, 1959**

Things fall into a regular routine for Hawkeye and Trapper. Every year, Trapper reserves the hotel room in the same hotel, which is now a little lodge off an alley by the Boston harbor, where they can hear the water slapping against the hulls of boats as they fuck, and Hawkeye thinks about the way their relationship is so much like the ocean: it comes in waves, and it's usually a smooth roll with the occasional hiccup.

This year, 1959, is one of the hiccups. Trapper arrives _after_ Hawkeye, who has been waiting sullenly in the hall, trying not to look like he's loitering or otherwise being suspicious. Trapper looks windblown, his curls longer than ever, his eyes sparkling. There's a grey hair here and there threaded through them now, but besides deeper crow's feet around his eyes, Trapper looks good. Maybe _too_ good, for Hawkeye's health.

"Where have you been?" Hawkeye asks, not meaning to sound snarly, but he was pretty much just waiting for the cops to come and arrest him at this point, which would be so much for keeping a low profile.

Trapper hasn't been as worried about his wife finding out the last few years; he's said that as she's gotten older, she's mellowed, and thinks that his reunion with his wartime buddies is a good idea for his mental health. _She took a course at the local community college and now she thinks she's a college professor on mental health,_ Trapper had said even though of course most mental health professionals would just lock you in an asylum and try to forget you existed. Especially if you were homosexual. Hawkeye's been living that scene for a few years now and he lives in fear of being discovered, of being sent away to be treated by people who can, with only the loosest sense of the definition, be called doctors.

"Hawkeye!" Trapper says gaily, grabbing his hands and pulling him along behind him as he unlocks the door to their room. He closes the door and kisses Hawkeye enthusiastically, having lost none of his sex drive in the intervening years. Sometimes, though, Hawkeye just wants to cuddle, and sex can wait.

But sex can never wait for Trapper. He's always so eager for it, to get Hawkeye laid out for him on the bed like a feast that he can sink his cock into, and as much as Hawkeye loves Trapper, he can't help it that sometimes he wants to just talk about their lives, or what-have-you, for a bit before falling into bed together.

"I have wonderful news," Trapper says, breaking the kiss, and does it make Hawkeye a bad person that his mind immediately goes to _I've gotten a divorce_ as the next words that may come out of Trapper's mouth? But no, that would never happen, and Hawkeye knows he has no right to ask, so he never has. Trapper's devoted to his marriage, even if not to his actual wife.

"What is it?" Hawkeye asks, because if it's not that—and let's face it, it's never going to be that—then he has no idea what could be making Trapper so happy, he's glowing. In fact, his skin is radiant, his eyes bright like stars, and Hawkeye has to squint and look away, feeling very small and mean that he would wish the end of Trapper's marriage on him. Especially to wish for it and think it would make Trapper this _happy_.

"My wife and I just had another baby. Three months ago. A boy! This calls for a drink," Trapper adds excitedly, and heads for the minibar.

"I don't want anything," Hawkeye says, feeling petulant now. He should be happy for Trapper, he knows that, but all he can think about is how it drives home the fact that Trapper and Louise are still sleeping together. He supposes he knew that, but concrete evidence is still painful.

"Are you sure? It's our first boy." Trapper is sipping from a glass of amber liquid—whiskey maybe?—and grinning. One of his teeth is a little chipped.

"What happened to your tooth?" Hawkeye asks, knowing he shouldn't change the subject but not being able to help himself. The way Trapper said that, _our first boy_, makes it sound like he hopes for more kids. And why shouldn't he? From what Hawkeye can tell, that's what's so great about marriage for Trap: how much he loves kids.It sure isn't his wife.

"Oh, I chipped it on a baseball playing in the yard with Kathy," Trapper says, and Hawkeye realizes that one of Trapper's daughters _is_ playing baseball, just not the one he'd imagined. Not that he knows them; fucking their father doesn't mean he has a great read on Trapper's daughters. And of course, until now, Trapper had only girls, so it's only natural he'd teach them to play sports. Trapper always was athletic.

"You should get it fixed," Hawkeye says without really thinking about it. Trapper shrugs.

"Louise says the same thing, but I think it gives me a bit of rakish charm. Don't you think?" He thrusts out his hip and smiles, hand on that hip, and Hawkeye feels a frigid part of him begin to thaw. Maybe he should let Trapper off the hook; it's not like Hawkeye's allowed to ask him not to fuck his own wife.

"I suppose it does, at that," Hawkeye says. "What'd you name him? The kid?"

"Jeremy," Trapper says. "Wanted to be a bit modern. Kathy and Becky are over the moon. Well, most of the time. There's quite a handful of years in between Becky and Jeremy, so sometimes the girls pout and flounce around the house because they're upset about a sibling this late in the game." Trapper pauses. "It's all because of you, you know that, Hawk?"

Hawkeye doesn't know how he feels about this. "How so?"

"You keep me feeling young, invigorated. And sometimes when I need to get it up for Louise my brain just supplies an image of your face, and, well, you know the rest." Trapper comes back in for another kiss, embracing Hawkeye like a lover, like he might a woman. It makes Hawkeye feel strangely uncomfortable. Especially since Trapper hardly ever even _offers_ to bottom, never mind does it.

"Should you be thinking of your homosexual lover while in bed with your wife?" Hawkeye asks, tilting his head back and away a little.

"Well, I don't do it on purpose," Trapper says. Now he sounds defensive. "Aren't you happy for us?"

Not _me_, but _us_. Hawkeye hates that Trapper still considers them an us, him and his wife.

"Hawk, listen. Have I ever told you about the number of erections you gave me in Korea after we went on that particular R&R? You remember the one, right?"

How could he forget? It haunted his dreams for years.

"I don't think you have, no," Hawkeye says slowly, but Trapper just pecks on him the lips and grins again.

"The thing is, I might've needed a boost for my sex drive by now if not for you. You should feel flattered."

"Flattery is just imitation," Hawkeye says flippantly, "and nothing can imitate _this_ original." He decides to change the subject once and for all. "Now, let's fuck," he adds, and Trapper pulls him towards the bed.

And they do.

++

**July 27, 1964**

The sun is just peeking over the horizon, leaving fingers of pink and gold in the dusky velvet of the predawn sky, and Hawkeye and Trapper are lying in bed together, their breathing still disordered by recent orgasm. Trapper's tying off the condom—they still use one, more often than not—and it's so quiet, the hush before the full break of dawn when the birds start singing.

They fucked all night, as if Trapper was trying to make up for lost time, and Hawkeye's sore and bruised and bitten and wondering if this is the best idea he's ever had, or the worst. Because he's getting older, and the only steady thing in his life these days besides his work seems to be this one day a year when he has Trapper all to himself.

But despite the hyper-focused way Trapper was towards him during sex, Hawkeye has the sense that his lover is distracted. It's never a good sign for your lover to be lying inches away from you but it feels like they're miles away. He stretches, trying to work out the kinks in his back without standing up, and tries to subtly scootch closer to Trapper.

"You okay, Hawk?" Trapper asks, dropping the condom off the side of the bed. Hawkeye knows from experience that Trapper will get it in the wastepaper basket without even looking, and he's gratified that Trapper seems to have noticed his unease, even as he feels a bit guilty for doubting Trapper at all.

"We still going out for breakfast?" Hawkeye asks. The night before, when he'd arrived, Trapper had been dressed up, unlike his usual casual tee and jeans, he'd been wearing dress pants and a crisp, starched white shirt. Hawkeye had wanted to ask how he'd explained that to his wife, but he couldn't think of a way to broach the subject, so he'd just let it go and asked what the occasion was. _It's our tenth anniversary,_ Trapper had said.

They'd gone to dinner, even though Hawkeye had been wearing something much less formal, and they'd eaten at the bar, so it wouldn't look suspicious, two guys at a table together. Now, this morning, Trapper's suggested breakfast, yet another piece of the celebration of ten years of this. Ten years of loving Trapper. Ten years of Trapper cheating on his wife with Hawkeye.

Hawkeye wishes he could forget about Trapper's wife, but she feels like the phantom third person in bed with them all the time. Of course, now that it's morning, Hawkeye's exhausted. He's getting too old to just stay up all night, unlike his younger self, who went through residency caffeinated and half-drunk on exhaustion.

Sometimes, now that the war is in a slightly more distant past, instead of talking about the things they discussed in Korea, like casualties and medical techniques and pranking Frank, they talk about their lives _before_. Hawkeye is sometimes amazed by the fact that he and Trapper worked in hospitals so close together without ever really running into each other.

"You hungry, Hawk?" Trapper asks, rolling onto his side to leer at Hawkeye with one eyebrow raised. "I got—"

"Just do us both a favor and don't finish that sentence," Hawkeye says, forcing a laugh. He's feeling maudlin, depressed, and it's so fucking stupid. Trapper's always attentive, he's never asked Hawkeye for anything he didn't want to give… and he gives Hawkeye so much. The love he's never found anywhere else. Even Carlye never made him feel like _this_. Maybe he had to be older to appreciate it, but sometime in these last ten years he's come to feel something much deeper, much stronger for Trapper than anything he's ever felt for a lover before.

By the same token, he's got too much grey hair, too many wrinkles, to lie back and play sex games like a teenager, being offered cock and come for breakfast instead of waffles and cream.

"What's the matter? Ya seem tense," Trapper says, massaging Hawkeye's shoulder. "Did I hurt ya last night?"

"No, no, I'm fine. Ignore me," Hawkeye says. He stares at that beautiful face, hardly changed even after ten years. Trapper's gold wedding ring winks in the sunlight, and Hawkeye has to swallow the bitter words that want to rise to the surface. Trapper's always removed his wedding ring before this, but this feels like a punch to the face. They've talked around the idea of Trapper leaving his wife, most recently the last time they met up, in 1963, but Trapper was adamant that he had to be there to watch his kids grow up—or his son, mostly, since his daughters were grown, nineteen and seventeen years old already. How has that much time already passed?

But they've had that argument, and it never turns out well for Hawkeye, always leaving him in an unflattering light, the man who wants his gay lover to leave his wife to be in a relationship that they can never mention to anyone. And so he eats the words, even though they make him sick to his stomach like mess tent food used to, and as he's fumbling for something to say—something to distract himself from the wedding ring Trapper's still wearing—the phone rings.

The sun has crested and is shining hotly down now, slanting through the cracks in the curtains, and the phone is ringing.

"Trap—" Hawkeye starts, but Trapper's already sliding his feet to the floor and running for the phone before it can ring again. Hawkeye knows that Trapper's wife knows where he is, that he's supposedly alone in this hotel room, but he still feels a thread of nervousness wrap around his heart and squeeze taut. He feels like it's literally cutting off circulation, which is of course ridiculous, but his breath shortens and his heart pounds in panic.

"Hello?" Trapper says, wrapping the curls of the phone cord around his finger. "Louise? What's wrong? Oh, Jeremy?" Trapper rubs a hand through his hair and Hawkeye notices, in the brilliant white of the sun, something he hadn't seen last night: Trapper's hairline is receding just a slight bit. His skin is slightly more weathered. He looks… he looks like he's gotten _old_, and it's only been ten years! For some reason Hawkeye thought they'd have more time before middle age really set in.

"Hi, sweetheart!" Trapper is saying into the phone. "Tell Daddy what's the matter, okay, honey?" He nods, then grimaces. "Tummy trouble? ...you don' want Mommy to bring you some ginger ale? No?" He goes quiet, obviously listening to his son speak. Hawkeye wonders what that little voice sounds like: does he lisp from babyhood still? The kid's gotta be, oh, four by now. "But Daddy is busy, Jer. Are you sure—? All right, calm down! I'll be home soon. Go hug Mommy and then lie down, okay? I love you, little bear. Yeah. I know. Okay. Bye-bye, little bear." He hangs up and jumps up in almost the same motion.

"What's going on?" Hawkeye asks, feeling absurdly forgotten. Maybe this is why Trapper seemed distant?

"Jeremy has a tummy ache, and he wants me. I gotta go, Hawk, can ya pass me my pants?"

"You can't go," Hawkeye says, feeling as if a piece of glass has broken and wedged into his flesh somewhere. He shouldn't feel this jealous of a four year old child. "It's—Trap, our anniversary!"

"Whaddya want me to say, Hawk? What am I gonna do? My kid needs me, and it ain't like my family knows what this really means to us." _Means to me, you mean_, Hawkeye thinks.

"But, Trap—"

"_And_," Trapper continues, as if Hawkeye hasn't spoken, "as far as they know, this is just war shit. I'm not gonna make my kid feel like some old war that's been over for a decade is the reason he can't see his daddy when he asks for him." Trapper gives up on waiting for Hawkeye to hand him his pants; he's pulling up underwear with elastic in them, so different from the button-up olive drab pairs they wore when they were in Korea. Sometimes Hawkeye thinks the only time he ever _really_ had Trapper was back then, during a war they would have both given anything to avoid.

"Trapper, please," Hawkeye says, getting out of bed and seeking out his own clothes. "Don't do this. It's only a few more hours. _Stay_." What he's not saying, what he's not quite yet desperate enough to say, is that there's only a few more hours until another year before he'll see Trapper again, and the waiting time in between visits gets more agonizing every year.

Trapper gives him a dark look, so at odds from the sunny smiles he usually bestows on Hawkeye. "Even if I could," he says, "I already told my kid I'd be home. So I gotta go. Be good, Hawk," he adds, as if this platitude is somehow placating, and then he's pulling his shirt over his head, shoving his clothes into his suitcase.

He comes over, quick as a hummingbird alighting he leaves a kiss on Hawkeye's lips, then strides towards the door. He doesn't look back as he says,

"Happy anniversary, okay? Same time, next year, Hawkeye. Don't forget." Then he's gone, and Hawkeye realizes he's shivering, arms wrapped around himself. Trapper really just walked through that door after Hawkeye begged him to stay.

He doesn't know what feels worse: the fact that Trapper left him, or the fact that he never had any right to beg Trapper to stay. Trapper's right: that's his son, and if the kid wants his father, well, his father shouldn't be buggering another dude in the first place.

Hawkeye packs his own bag, grabbing his toothbrush from the bathroom, and as he does, he realizes Trapper forgot his.

Hawkeye picks it up and twirls it between his fingers. Another year. In another year, Trapper will have gone through who knows how many toothbrushes. And then he has another thought: what if he's just like this toothbrush? Abandoned, forgotten, replaceable?

That thought dogs his heels the whole way home. When he gets there, the phone is ringing. He picks up listlessly, discovering that he's still holding Trapper's toothbrush as Trapper's voice echoes down the line.

"Listen, I only got a minute, because Louise took Jeremy out to the car. We're taking him to the doc. I'm alone. I'm sorry I rushed out on ya, okay? I love you. Remember that. I'll see ya soon. Okay? Bye, Hawk," he says, then hangs up before Hawkeye can say a word.

Did he really think that phone call would be enough? Hawkeye goes to the kitchen trash and dumps the toothbrush into it.

Too bad dumping Trapper out of his heart couldn't be that easy.

++

When the letter arrives, right on schedule, the following year, Hawkeye is actually still smarting from how their ten year anniversary ended, and debates not even showing up. He could call Trapper up and tell him he's sick, or there's an emergency surgery he needs to do, _something_, because even though there's a part—an unflatteringly large part—that is absolutely anxious to see Trapper, a smaller, more vocal, part is crying out for Hawkeye to stay home. For him to _teach him some kind of lesson_, even though he knows it's childish, since Trapper has other responsibilities, ones that take precedence over Hawkeye.

Still, Hawkeye can't help it. That vocal part of him is ringing bells and banging drums and screaming in Hawkeye's ear that Trapper never truly loved him, that he _won't_ ever truly love him, that he's incapable of it.

Hawkeye tells it to shut up and begins to pack his suitcase, the little cream card reading _Same time, next year?_ staring up at him accusingly all the while. He's going to show up—but can he see Trapper this year without starting a fight? He doesn't want to fight. He feels like—no, he's _afraid_ that a fight will lead to the end of this… thing—whatever it is—between them. That Trapper will decide it's too much trouble. That Hawkeye will be leading to his own abandonment simply because he can't bear to be abandoned. Sidney would probably tell him that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Hawkeye has to be smarter than that, right?

Besides, Trapper wouldn't go to all this trouble just for the sake of cheating, not anymore. Hawkeye doesn't know for sure, but he thinks it's been years since Trapper cheated on his wife with anyone but Hawkeye. The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, like camphor, when he considers that maybe Trapper kept up his womanizing ways—that maybe he's been cheating on _Hawkeye_ just as much as on his wife.

Fuck, now he _has_ to go. He has to see Trapper.

It's that simple.

++

**July 27, 1965**

"You shouldn't have left," Hawkeye says when he gets inside the hotel room. "Last year. That was a rotten thing to do." Trapper looks beautiful in the afternoon light, but Hawkeye is trying not to let it sway him.

"Hawkeye, not everythin' is about ya. Jeremy had appendicitis. It was a good thing I went home, could make sure he got the best doctors… they wouldn' let me do the surgery, said it was a conflict of interest." Trapper drops his suitcase to the floor. "Stop," he says, as Hawkeye opens his mouth. "Ya don't have to feel guilty. I ain't mad or even annoyed. I know I owe ya somethin' too, but he's my kid."

"But, Trapper, unless you knew it was something serious before you left, you basically ditched me for a tummy ache. Louise could have handled that on her own. Don't you think it was unreasonable for her to interrupt your time away with what could have been nothing at all? And before you say anything, Louise could have taken him to the doctor, too, and when she found out it was appendicitis, that's when she should have called." Hawkeye crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. Trapper has the good grace to glance at his feet.

"Hawk, look—"

"Did you know? Before you left me to go running home? Or did you go running home because you still don't want to admit that we have something?"

"Now, that's not fair! I came to terms with this years ago. You know that." He unzips his suitcase and starts unpacking his clean underwear and tomorrow's shirt. The jeans he's wearing are low on his hips—Trapper looks like he's lost weight, not quite the solid but slender build he's had for years—and he'll wear them again tomorrow.

"_Did you know beforehand_?" Hawkeye repeats, feeling like he's being unreasonable, but not able to let it go. Because just how important is he to Trapper, anyway? Would Trapper have left his _happy_ home to attend to Hawkeye if Hawkeye were sick? Hawkeye hopes they never have to find out; and not just because he doesn't think Trapper would, but because he'd hate to be sick enough to ask.

"No," Trapper admits in a soft, remorseful voice. "It's… just… Jeremy was like a miracle. I was worried."

"And if you'd stayed with me a little longer, I could have held you. We could have talked about it. But you never talk about your feelings, do you?" Hawkeye doesn't like serious conversations either, but at some point they had to have this one. "Trapper. I love you. I'm not just doing this for cheap carnival ride thrills or to take a pony ride. I've got a stake in this horse. And I think you do too."

Trapper folds and re-folds his underwear, finally laying them on top of the dresser. Hawkeye's own bag is in the corner, by the door, as-yet-unpacked. Hell, at this point he isn't even sure he's going to stay. Maybe it would be childish, but it would really be Trapper's just desserts if Hawkeye left early _this_ year, and Trapper was left behind.

"What are we doin', Hawk?" Trapper asks, looking miserable. "I do lo—want ya, but I've got other shit on my plate too. And you knew that."

"Can't even say the words? Can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed. Trapper, when are you going to leave her? You know this can't go on this way forever." A terrible thought occurs to him. "You're not trying to have more children, are you? Did you get her pregnant just so you would have an excuse not to leave?"

"Fuck, you're suspicious. No! I did not get my _wife_ pregnant just to make her stay."

"Make _her_ stay?" Hawkeye asks, eyebrows climbing his forehead. This is a new twist on an old tale. "What are you talking about?"

Trapper grabs his underwear and balls them up into his fist.

"There was—Louise wasn't alone the whole time I was in Korea. She's too docile to ever ask _me_ for a divorce, but when I got home, she was pregnant. She… she miscarried, Hawk. The baby wasn' mine, but she was so devastated by it… and then the docs said she probably wouldn' have any more kids. It almost wrecked us, Hawk. I know I ain't _in love_ with her anymore, that I haven't been for a long time, but I still _love_ her, I can't stop. And I—shit." Trapper stuffs his hand into his mouth, apparently forgetting the clean underwear he's still holding.

Hawkeye doesn't feel guilty, but he is sympathetic. He hadn't known. Going to get his own bag, a serviceable duffel with a change of clothes and his toiletries and hygiene products, he says,

"Why didn't you _tell_ me, Trap? That must have been awful."

"Which part? The bitter taste of my own medicine, or my wife's depression? Fuck. When we had Jeremy, it was unbelievable. Even when she first got pregnant, the docs said not to get our hopes up."

Hawkeye puts his toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom then comes back and sits down on the bed. Without being asked, Trapper abandons his comfort underwear and comes to sit beside him. The mattress rolls a little and their hips and thighs end up squished together. Hawkeye can feel the first stirrings of desire, but this year, Trapper doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get Hawkeye's clothes off.

"So now you won't leave her because she cheated on you?" Hawkeye asks, modulating his tone not to be offensive, but genuinely curious.

"I ain't proud of it, Hawk, but I threatened to kill the guy. Then, when she lost the baby, she said she was sorry about all of it, and it broke my heart that she thought she deserved… well." Trapper puts his hand on Hawkeye's thigh, not lewdly or suggestively, but apparently just so that they can be touching even more.

"It wasn't your fault," Hawkeye says. "You didn't cause her to lose the baby."

"I know," Trapper says quietly. "But part of me thought maybe I was bein' punished. Cheatin' on her in Korea, fuckin' you, all of it. It took me a long time to understand that sometimes bad shit happens for no fucking reason."

"Korea should have taught you that lesson, you know," Hawkeye says. Trapper nods his head.

"I thought I'd left it behind when I went home. Hawk. Can ya see why I can't leave her? Not now."

Hawkeye tilts Trapper's head towards him, gazing into hazel eyes gone crystalline with the shadow of tears, and kisses him gently, long and slow. When he pulls back, he nods.

"Say you will, someday," Hawkeye says, searching those eyes. They are filled with a painful honesty when Trapper says,

"Someday, yeah." He kisses Hawkeye again. "I couldn' live without ya, Hawk. Don't you know that by now?" He kisses along Hawkeye's jaw. "I'd miss the bristles."

Hawkeye is startled into a laugh. "Does that mean you're about to rip my clothes off?" he asks.

"Oh, yeah," Trapper says, pushing Hawkeye towards the bed. "Get ready to be _ravished_."

"This is a fucking romance novel now?" Hawkeye asks, even as Trapper begins to yank his pants down.

"Ya read that shit?" Trapper asks, but then he's absorbed in undressing Hawkeye, and Hawkeye, for his part, is too distracted to return fire.

They fall in bed together, and it's good, like it is every year, even when they argue.

++

**July 27, 1970**

They've been doing this for sixteen years, but Hawkeye is still surprised when Trapper looks different when they meet up. This time, as he dumps his ancient duffel by the bed, he stares at Trapper, cataloging the changes: he's thinner; his hair is cut quite short and styled to within an inch of its life—the curls are tamed in softer whorls; the crow's feet by his eyes are more pronounced than ever, and he's got bracket lines around his mouth.

When Hawkeye steps in close for their customary kiss, he can see the threads of grey running through Trapper's hair. Then they're kissing, and Trap tastes and feels so familiar, Hawkeye forgets how much time has passed. He's simply caught up in the pleasure of kissing, and of kissing _Trapper_. It's been too long since he's kissed anyone.

It's been even longer since he's kissed Trapper—too long. When they pull apart, Hawkeye feels as if separating from Trapper's lips is like pulling taffy apart. He just wants to cling to them, to cling to _him_, as if by doing so he can forget all the arguments they've had, all the times when they weren't on the same page—or even in the same book—and just concentrate on the way his heart seems to pump blood differently when Trapper's in the same room with him.

"So, how've you been, Hawk?" Trapper asks, as they separate to start settling in for the next two days. Hawkeye wonders how to answer that; say he's been happy? Say he's been himself, which is to say somewhat flat affect and depressed like he always is? Does he tell Trapper that he's better now that they're together?

What is the most honest—and what would Trapper most like to hear?

"Eh," he finally says with a shrug. "I've been okay. Fine, really."

Trapper turns around from unfolding his clothes and meets Hawkeye's eyes. His are slightly narrowed, his brow furrowed a little, drawing attention to the fine wrinkles that now caress his forehead like Hawkeye's hands are used to doing.

"That sounds like a brush-off," Trapper says. "What aren't you telling me?"

"It's nothing, by which I mean there's nothing I'm not telling you, specifically." Hawkeye rolls his shoulders, feeling the ever-present ache that settled into them sometime in the last few years. He wonders how Trapper feels these days; if his body feels older, more worn, like a wind-up toy whose mechanism is wearing out, the way Hawkeye sometimes does these days.

"Hawk, listen, I know the past few years have been difficult. That I haven't asked about _your_ life as much I should, or as much as we've talked about mine. What's goin' on? You ever find a girl an' settle down? Am I gonna be an uncle someday?"

Hawkeye can feel his eyes widen, his mouth drop open. Of all the things he was expecting from Trapper, those questions don't even come close to being it.

"No! Fuck, Trap. I'm not the kind of guy to settle down. You know that." The truth is, he gave up looking long ago for a woman to be with—sixteen years ago, to be precise. "I've slept around a bit, but nothing serious," he says, and watches as Trapper's face falls.

"I know my marriage ain't the best blueprint for happiness," Trapper says, "but I want you to have something real, Hawk. Not jus' me. I ain't enough; one day a year. C'mon."

Hawkeye feels flayed open, like a cadaver on the table, open for autopsy. How does Trapper know that Hawkeye basically passes the year between trysts in a blur of work and meaningless sex? Hell, sometimes he doesn't even get to the sex; he kisses a woman and realizes her lips are slightly too soft, her figure too curved and supple, and misses the angular lines of Trapper's body.

"Have you?" Hawkeye asks, gesturing. "Still stepping out on Louise?"

"Fuck, no. Hawkeye, I gave up that up after Korea. Except you, I mean. An' don't change the subject."

"I'm not," Hawkeye says, but he can tell from Trapper's expression that he isn't buying what Hawkeye's selling. "It's nothing. I just never found anyone, that's all."

"Do you even look?" Trapper asks. "Or do you just fuck them and leave 'em?" He puts his hands on his hips; it's a very effeminate gesture from a man who is, as far as Hawkeye knows, straight as an arrow except for one very peculiar set of circumstances; he thinks the war did something funny to Trapper's brain, to make him want Hawkeye back.

"I could never find what I was looking for," Hawkeye hedges. He plops down on the bed and starts taking his boots off, then unzipping his pants. Trapper's wearing nice pants this year, not jeans like he often wears. Maybe he finally got tired of having to pour himself into them; his jeans were always so tight.

"What are ya lookin' for? I think you're too picky, Hawk. In Korea you fell in love with a new nurse every week. Dontcha remember?" Trapper gets down on one knee in front of him. "Lemme do that," he says, pushing Hawkeye's hands away from his fly. "You know how much I love undressin' ya."

Hawkeye submits, letting his hands fall to his sides as Trapper tugs his zipper down, then he shifts his ass to help Trapper pull his pants off. His underwear are serviceable white, briefs, a far cry from the army, and it makes him shake a little, to remember but to be so glad to be seventeen years out from those horrible days, despite the nightmares he still has.

His cock, though, is perfectly willing; he's already hard, throbbing, and the closer Trapper gets to it, the harder and deeper it throbs. Trapper wraps his hand around it, stroking him with his thumb, as he finishes undressing Hawkeye from the waist down.

Well, except for his socks. Hawkeye laughs a little to be sitting there in nothing but his shirt and his socks. Trapper looks up with a grin, clearly knowing what Hawkeye is thinking. Then his grin shifts into something a little diabolical, and he smooths his palm over Hawkeye's cock before lowering his head between Hawkeye's thighs. He parts his lips and mouths over the head of Hawkeye's dick, slipping him some tongue here and there, the beginning of a tease.

Hawkeye knows from experience how Trapper applies himself to a blowjob; he's very inventive when it comes to actual intercourse, but he's never varied his blowjob technique in sixteen years. Actually, it took some time for Trapper to become comfortable with the idea of having someone else's dick in his mouth; Hawkeye's pretty sure that, by now, Trapper could hook up with another guy for anonymous, meaningless fucking, but he doubts he could give head to anyone but Hawkeye—which makes him feel irrationally pleased.

Trapper finishes deliberating with his lips and tongue and commits; he sinks down, mouth opened to accommodate Hawkeye, and twirls his tongue round the girth. As he lowers down more, taking Hawkeye fully into his mouth, his nose pressed to Hawkeye's pubic bone, the phone rings.

The only person with this number is Trapper's wife, and Hawkeye remembers with dismay what happened the last time she called here, and Trapper rushed away, leaving Hawkeye with nothing but the shreds of their anniversary running through his fingers. He puts a hand on the top of Trapper's head, gently holding him in place, and says,

"Don't."

Trapper shakes his head, and Hawkeye lets him go.

"I have to," he says, eyes turned green from the color of his shirt and lips swollen and pink. He's very clearly into what he's been doing, but he's also obviously interrupted; his mind is moving quickly to other matters. "I'll explain in a minute, okay?"

He reaches across Hawkeye's bare lap for the phone, pulling the receiver towards him.

"What is it? Honey?" He pauses for her to speak, then says, with something in his voice that makes Hawkeye tremble, "yeah, of course. They'll understand. I should be at the hospital in about twenty minutes. All right. Bye."

He hangs up and Hawkeye realizes his bare, stiff cock is still inches from Trapper's lips, still throbbing with interest and aching a but from the interruption.

"Now what?" Hawkeye asks crabbily, closing his legs as Trapper gets creakily to his feet.

"Gets harder and harder to get up off the ol' knees every year," he says, coming to sit beside Hawkeye. He puts his arm around him, drawing him close, kissing his jaw, beneath his ear. "Kathy got married last year, and her baby was due in about a month, but Louise says it's coming now. I hope ya won't be mad, Hawk, but it's my first grandkid, and I wanna be there. Plus I promised Kathy I'd be there." He kisses Hawkeye again, turning his face so he can reach his lips. "Say ya forgive me, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Hawkeye says. "You should go. Not every day you have your first grandbaby."

"You're the best, Hawk," Trapper says. He kisses him one last time, long and deeply, then starts dashing around the lodge room, gathering his things. He's a whirling dervish, collecting his suitcase and running his hands anxiously through his hair every few seconds, mussing the careful styling.

And then he's gone, and Hawkeye is left the mourn the dregs of their weekend, knowing that Trapper definitely had to go, that he really can't be mad. Kathy's been part of Trapper's life long before he met Hawkeye, and besides, childbirth is tricky and dangerous. He should definitely be there.

Hawkeye flops backward onto the bed and closes his eyes. He might as well stay here for the weekend, he's deliberately not on call, and if he goes home, the hospital might call him to come in for some emergency surgery or another.

As he's drifting off to sleep, he wonders what the likelihood is that Trapper will call to give him the outcome of Kathy's labor: whether it's successful, what sex the baby is…

++

**July 31, 1970 **

Trapper calls a few days later, one of the rare occasions when they speak to each other outside of their same time, next year arrangement. He's justifiably excited over the phone line; Hawkeye can practically see him bouncing on the balls of his feet as he says,

"It's a boy! Seven pounds, eight ounces, and Kathy named him after me." The proud grandfather is clearly preening, even though Hawkeye can't see him.

"That's great news, Trap. How's Kathy? She doing good?" Hawkeye might have mixed, conflicted feelings about carrying on a decades-long affair with a married man who has three kids—and now a grandkid—but he remembers when Kathy was only seven years old, and even he worries.

"She's doing great. She's super excited to be a mom, and her husband is thrilled with a baby boy. Personally, I think he's not good enough for her, especially since he seems like a baby girl wouldn't have pleased him, but—"

"Trapper," Hawkeye breaks in, "she's your firstborn daughter. Of course you don't think anyone is worthy of her."

"Hey, listen, I gotta run. Louise is walking this way. I'll see ya, okay?" And even though Hawkeye is left listening to a dial tone, he's so happy that Trapper called—that he considered Hawkeye might want to hear the news—that he doesn't even mind.

++

**July 27, 1978**

Trapper's getting out of the shower when he calls back into the other room, to Hawkeye,

"Jeremy just turned eighteen. He wants to go into medicine, to become a doctor like his dad. I think he oughta be a pretty fine surgeon if that's what he wants." He steps out of the bathroom towelling hair that is still thick and curly, but more grey than blonde now, and his hairline has receded a fair bit. He's still nude, water droplets tracing the contours and angles of his body, but he has more of a belly now than he's ever had, flabbier arms—but part of Hawkeye will always see the man he fell in love with, with the perfect athlete's body and shining blonde curls. The cock is the same, but the skin is more wrinkled over his frame, his smattering of chest hair grey as well now too.

Hawkeye is barely paying attention to Trapper's words, too caught up in staring at the naked body of the only lover he's had in years—and sometimes his libido has complained, because one or two days a year is hardly a feast, but he makes do nowadays. Trapper's the only person he wants. He wonders if Trapper knows that; he hasn't explicitly said so, but surely Trapper must have been able to divine his emotions from the way they have sex?

Now, twenty-five years into their affair, the way they have sex is less about lust and more about communication. The way they place their hands and where; the touch of a tongue to a nipple or the press of fingertips to a hipbone, it all means something to Hawkeye, and from the unspoken words in Trapper's eyes as they keep eye contact while he fucks into Hawkeye, it means something to Trapper, too.

Then something registers.

"Jeremy's eighteen? He's all grown up. I bet he doesn't need his daddy anymore." He stares hard at Trapper's face, trying to read everything there is to know about him in the curves of his cheekbones and the only slighted faded glitter in his eyes, or the soft pout of his mouth.

"No," Trapper says, stalking over to the bed, putting one knee on it, then the other, till he's straddling an equally nude Hawkeye whose body has already been fucked open once. Trapper had showered off the sweat and come, but he seems ready to go for round two, and Hawkeye is a cynical bastard who thinks it's because he wants to avoid the upcoming discussion—one that is more likely to be an argument, after all. But maybe not this time. Maybe this time Trapper will see the wisdom in it.

Though Hawkeye _is_ about to ask him to end a nearly thirty-five year marriage.

"Come on, Trap. You've given her most of your life. You need to turn your attention elsewhere now, unless you're about to tell me you still love her and you don't love me." He takes a breath. "And I don't think you'd have spent twenty-five years doing this, here, with me, if you didn't love me." Though now that he thinks about it, he's not sure Trapper's ever actually said the words to him.

Always before, it didn't seem to matter; it felt like their bodies spoke the language of love so fluently that surely Trapper must feel that emotion too. But what if he doesn't? What if this is just an exploration of a side of his sexuality that he never wanted to explore with anyone else, but that's all it means?

"You know I love my wife, Hawkeye," Trapper says, fitting the head of his cock to Hawkeye's entrance. Hawkeye's legs, once so limber, bend uneasily over his shoulders, his knees complaining.

"I don't know any such thing," Hawkeye says acerbically. "You cheated on her through your whole tour of duty. You've been cheating ever since you got home, too. If you really loved your wife, and were in love with her, you wouldn't have needed anyone else."

"And how do ya know?" Trapper says, smoothly penetrating him, Hawkeye's body widening open, accustomed to Trapper's sizeable cock by now, even after all the time in between fuckings. He dutifully lifts his hips, fitting himself to their familiar rhythm, but his heart, for maybe the first time ever, isn't in it.

"Because I do." He holds Trapper's eyes and slowly squeezes his inner muscles, watching the pupils in those hazel eyes blow wide. "I haven't needed anyone else in twenty-five years," he finally says, throwing his whole heart and soul into those words. "Even when I fucked other women, there was only one person I loved, and only one reason I fucked them, and that was purely to get off. These days it's just me and my hand. C'mon, Trap. Give her up."

"It isn't right for ya to ask me for that," Trapper says. He's still moving, but slower and slower, obviously distracted. "I know you're important, Hawkeye, but she's my wife. I did promise her my whole life." Unspoken are the words, _I never promised _you_ that_.

Hawkeye pulls back, removing his hands from Trapper's chest. "Get off me."

Trapper stalls mid-thrust, his cock still halfway cradled by Hawkeye's body.

"What?" He blinks, still apparently befuddled by lust, but Hawkeye's mind has never been clearer.

"You heard me, Trap. Get off me."

Trapper pulls out and shoves off the bed, wincing as his muscles and joints protest such sudden, violent movement.

"You're being unreasonable," Trapper says, even as Hawkeye gets up and starts searching for his clothes.

"No, Trapper. _You're_ being unreasonable. I've done this for a long time, thinking we were in love, but now… now I just don't know. I guess I'll see you next year, after I've had some time to think."

"You're leaving?" Trapper is staring at him, his cock bouncing slightly against his belly, still very turned on, not yet understanding that there will be no release this time.

"Yes. If I'm not important enough for us to even have this conversation, then I don't particularly feel like having sex at the moment. Surely your wife is just as good for that for you." It's late afternoon, the day they'd normally check out and go home anyway, and Hawkeye's bag is already packed. He hefts it in one arm and walks to the door, hand on the doorknob when he turns back. "Just in case it wasn't clear, Trap: I love you, and I'm growing weary of playing second fiddle."

Trapper's still standing there, aroused and naked, when the door shuts behind Hawkeye.

++

Six months before the customary date, Hawkeye receives a letter from Trapper: _we still on for same time, next year?_ but with no return address, just a phone number that Hawkeye recognizes as being in the area code of where Trapper resides in Boston. He lives in Beacon Hill, and Hawkeye knows this because of the return address on Trapper's cryptic but dependable letters.

He debates the wisdom of calling Trapper, especially since this is the first time in twenty-five years that _he_ would be the one initiating a phone call—he never dared before because of Trapper's wife, and even calling him at the hospital was risky—he would have had to call the directory and ask for Doctor McIntyre, and that always just seemed like a bad idea.

Still, he can understand why Trapper might be worried. Or if not worried, then a bit concerned, maybe; after all, Hawkeye did storm out in disgust last year. And to be perfectly honest, he's not sure he's forgiven Trapper. He's not sure he _needs_ to forgive Trapper in order to meet up with him in secret, but it would probably be nice to go to the lodge without planning to start an argument as soon as he gets there.

Unfortunately, he just keeps remembering how Trapper made him feel, like he was second-rate to the wife Trapper doesn't even love. How is Hawkeye supposed to take that? Trapper hasn't ever said he loves _Hawkeye_, but he still claims to love the woman who trapped him in marriage by getting pregnant?

Hawkeye knows he's being uncharitable; there's no indication that Louise got pregnant on purpose, and of course it couldn't have happened without Trapper's willing participation, so he's disgusted as much with himself as with Trapper. But the difference between them is that Trapper chooses to stay with a woman that Hawkeye knows he doesn't love, yet won't make _any_ kind of commitment to Hawkeye beyond one or two days every year, depending on whether July 27th, the anniversary of when the Korean armistice was signed, falls on a weekend.

He finds it peculiar, and a little bit curious, that they always meet up on an anniversary of something to do with Korea, even though neither of them likes to think about it much. In fact, in the last ten years Korea has hardly been mentioned; early on, in the first ten years, they'd occasionally drink to the date that freed Hawkeye from the army and sent him home, but they haven't done that in a long time.

Now Hawkeye is standing in his kitchen, staring down at the letter in his hand, and wondering if calling Trapper is wise. Trapper doesn't include any explanations in his note, but surely he's worried about his wife answering? Or maybe she's on a retreat or something. Still, Trapper couldn't know when Hawkeye was going to receive the letter, not for certain.

Eventually, as he's frying up a chicken cutlet for his dinner, he decides not to call. He'll show up, and if Trapper shows up too, great. If not, that maybe this whole thing wasn't meant to be after all.

Because Hawkeye is still angry, and he doesn't trust speaking to Trapper over the phone right now: he might say something he'd regret, and he might do it in a way that Trapper's wife could overhear. So he flips his chicken cutlet over and turns off the heat to the rice, knowing that this year could lead to a huge disappointment.

And that it could alienate Trapper, maybe for good. But despite that, Hawkeye can't see any other choice. Someday, he has to have some self-respect.

And it's today, that he's going to do something for himself that doesn't include indulging his useless heart in its quest for Trapper.

In fact, his brain is making plans. Something to test Trapper once and for all, _if_ he shows up.

++

**July 27, 1979**

To Hawkeye's surprise—at least a bit—Trapper is not only there, in the lodge room when he arrives, but lying on the bed in his underwear. He seems perhaps overly confident of how things are going to go, considering the way they left things last year, and the fact that Hawkeye never called him back.

"Preparing for disappointment?" Hawkeye asks as he sets his things down by the door. His old duffel bit the dust, and now he has a shiny new luggage bag and a toiletry bag. It seems like a lot for a weekend, but they match and Hawkeye, wearing an old Hawaiian shirt, still feels snazzy despite the fact that his hair is completely grey with the odd black thread, and his body is more hunched than it used to be, thinner than ever but with a protruding belly. He spent a lot of time looking in the mirror this morning, hoping he won't disgust Trapper.

"I like to think of it as hopefulness," Trapper says, patting the bed next to him. "You comin'?"

"Not yet," Hawkeye says, leaning against the doorframe. Trapper gives him a crooked grin.

"Ya know I can make that happen for ya," he says, smoothing the comforter down next to him. "C'mere."

Hawkeye would like to do just that, but there's no way he's just leaping—well, with his bad back, it's more like falling these days—into bed with Trapper with no conversation.

"Have you forgotten about last year?" Hawkeye says with a lifted eyebrow. Trapper sighs and visibly deflates.

"I was hopin' we could talk about it, sure, but aftah." Trapper looks hopeful. But Hawkeye is going to cruelly dash those hopes. He knows it isn't a kind thing, what he's planning to do, but he doesn't see much of a choice. He didn't make the trip just to see Trapper and to fuck him. No.

"Listen, Trap. I didn't come all this way for what you're offering. I just thought you deserved the truth in person. When we… well, when you decided you loved your wife more than me, I finally had a choice to make. I met someone."

Trapper's face is suffused by shock, going pale in the contours and red on the apples of his cheeks. He's clearly startled by the idea that Hawkeye might move on.

"What are you sayin'?" He yanks the blanket over his lap, hiding his huge dick, which is a shame. His belly is rounder than ever, but his eyes are still bright. God, Hawkeye feels old.

"I'm _saying_, when you made a choice, so did I. I have to lay the past to rest now. Korea is choking me, and you were part of that experience and—" but he chokes on the rest of the words. How can he do this to the man he loves? Trapper's visibly incredibly upset.

"You fell in love?" Trapper says. "Is that while you didn' call?"

"I did," Hawkeye says, but he's lying. The only person he fell in love with was Trapper, and that happened decades ago.

"Look, Hawk, I get it, ya replaced me, but I need to tell ya something. Six months ago, when I sent that letter, with my phone number…" He swallows. "Louise had just moved out. Our divorce was finalized last year."

Hawkeye physically reels back, unable to believe what he's hearing. Guilt closes over his head like being caught in an ocean swell, and he knows his mouth is wide open, fly-catching width.

"You left her? You left your wife?"

"I had a lot of time to think, and you were right, Hawk. I should've said this to ya a long time ago, but it's _you_ I love. Not her. Givin' her the rest of my life didn' seem right, especially not when I knew ya had waited for me every year. I guess I deserve this."

Hawkeye was just testing him—he was just trying to get Trapper to commit—but now he feels like the world's biggest heel.

"Trap…" he starts, but Trapper's already out of the bed, pulling on a robe. Hawkeye is surprised that he's not just automatically getting dressed—what does it say about them that they're always leaving, one or the other, early? "Trap, stop."

Trapper belts the robe. "Ya might as well leave," he says evenly.

"No. I'll understand if you still want me to go but… Trap, look. I didn't think you would ever leave her. The woman I claim to love? She doesn't exist. I just wanted you to choose." Hawkeye knows he must look as miserable as he feels. "It was a terrible thing to do, but—"

Trapper is standing stock-still, one hand still caught in the loop of the belt for the robe. He blinks, a few times, then seems to come to himself.

"Not as horrible as what I did to you," he says. "I could've written or called… I could've left her years ago. You were right. So, now what?"

"That depends on you," Hawkeye says. "Is this—" he gestures to himself, then to Trapper "—what you want?"

"Oh, Hawk, there's nothin' I want more." Trapper seems to unfreeze, practically running across the room—though Hawkeye thinks they might be a little old to be as quick and agile as they'd like to be—and grabs Hawkeye, burying his face in Hawkeye's shoulder, then biting the junction between neck and shoulder, then grabbing Hawkeye's face and yanking him in for an enthusiastic kiss. They kiss for what seems like hours, and Hawkeye begins to feel buoyant, jubilant, lost in the happiness that Trapper is weaving around them with this kiss.

When he finally pulls back, lips wet and shiny and red, he's gasping.

"This is all I've wanted for _years_," he says, panting. "I was just too afraid to grab it. I ain't afraid anymore."

"So what will we do?" Hawkeye asks, smoothing the robe, then slipping his hands inside the halves and caressing Trapper's chest. Trapper's dick is hard, achingly hard, and throbbing against his belly.

"Whatever we want," Trapper says, kissing him again. "Whatever we want."

And so that's what they do.

**Epilogue**  
**1983**

Hawkeye is singing in the shower, reminded of all the times he did the same while in Korea, while Trapper putters around getting dressed for his last day of work. They don't have a big party planned; Trapper's going to go straight from work to the house on Beacon Hill, have dinner with his ex-wife and his children, and then come back home.

Home, to the two-bedroom one and one-half bath apartment they share, and have shared, for the past three years, after that fateful final meeting in their lodge hotel room wherein they decided to commit to each other instead of to other people.

Things haven't been perfect. They've had their arguments, like over the fact that Louise thinks Trapper lives alone—they resolved that one because being gay is still somewhat frowned upon, even if it's no longer illegal—or the one about whether they should get a dog. Ultimately they decided not to, because they were just too old to train and care for one. And sometimes Trapper has to sneak out of the apartment early in the morning to go meet up with one of his kids and his grandkids, which Hawkeye is bitter about.

Not because Trapper wants to see them—and he never goes to visit just his ex-wife—but because Trapper feels like he needs to be all stealthy about it. But for all that, things have been good. When AIDs sprung up around the country, they both got tested, and afterwards, they threw away their condoms for good, because neither planned to ever have gay sex with anyone else.

But things have settled in the past few years. They argue less and make love more, even though things creak and ache that never did when they were younger. Their sexual escapades tend to be very slow and sedate these days, like a couple of ancient turtles. Regardless, it's nice to go to sleep to the sound of Trapper snoring again, like he did thirty-odd years ago when they shared a tent.

The apartment is cleaner than the Swamp; Trapper lets Hawkeye have his clutter in the bedroom, but he tidies up the other rooms. Hawkeye has discovered a passion for cooking now that he's making food for two instead of just himself.

Still.

"Hey, Trap," he says over the running water. Trapper grunts and pokes his head behind the shower curtain, openly leering, though honestly Hawkeye doesn't think a geriatric surgeon like himself is much to leer at.

"What?" he asks, though. "You break a hip and need me to carry you to the car, it ain't happening. I'd break mine too."

"I ran out of shampoo," Hawkeye says, rather sheepishly. Trapper rolls his eyes.

"Because you always use mine," he says. "I'll get more."

"Trap, we use the same shampoo," Hawkeye says, familiar bickering filling him with warmth.

"We only use the same shampoo because you always forget to buy some for your specific hair," Trapper continues, rummaging in the linen closet. Hawkeye laughs. "And because ya don't take a fuckin' list to the store," he adds.

"Hey, Trap?" Hawkeye asks, knowing Trapper can't see the gooey grin on his face—though he can probably hear it. It's early morning, and Trapper's always crabby in mornings.

"Yeah, Hawk?"

"Good luck today. And I love you."

Trapper pushes a bottle of shampoo into the shower stall. "Thanks. I love ya too," he says, and it's a culmination of so many things, not least of them living together, that has led to Trapper's less and less restraint over saying those words.

"Knock 'em dead. Or, you know, not dead, since that would be in violation of the Hippocratic Oath—"

"_Hawkeye_," Trapper says, and they both laugh.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the movie "Same Time, Next Year" starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn! It's a great movie.


End file.
